Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 158. Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency: The Path to Letting Go After Divorce

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158. Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency: The Path to Letting Go After Divorce · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hi love.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about recovering from narcissistic abuse, a topic I have avoided I'll tell you more about that later but we're specifically going to tackle the most important thing you need to know about recovering from narcissistic abuse after divorce.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Hi love, welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Narcissistic abuse and its recovery is a complex issue.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Most certainly dovetails with very, very early childhood attachment concerns and is certainly linked to codependency and attachment trauma, and then it creates its own trauma to recover from in and of itself.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: So the recovery is nuanced and the conversation can get intense.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And for many, the conversation can get intense and for many, many reasons, I've avoided talking about it because in the history of my therapy practice, I actually find more often than not that that's not the main issue in divorce recovery, that somehow, somewhere, the topic of narcissism became very, very popular and we all began Googling it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And because we began Googling it, content creators everywhere monopolized on that and they started creating endless content about narcissistic abuse, watering down the concept for the handful of people who have really suffered from true, true narcissistic abuse.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Now the reality is is we have become, especially here in Western culture, very narcissistic.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: As a culture, we are self-obsessed, we spend way more time worried about our skincare routine and I'm not pointing anyone in particular out, I'm just talking about, you know, as a group, right, we have become really self-obsessed, and social media has had a massive role to play in that.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: We're constantly comparing ourselves to someone else, constantly analyzing, right, whether or not we're good enough or better than, or less than, or whatever, and buying another product that we don't actually need.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: That doesn't actually solve the problem, all because somewhere someone figured out that they could, you know, monetize our self-obsession.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And again, that's a lot to do with social media.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: And so, certainly, in my therapy practice, I encounter a lot of what we would call narcissistic tendencies or traits, but true blue narcissism is something that I don't encounter all that often, and I have had a private practice in a highly populated, affluent area where you would see more narcissism, and I've probably had a handful of true narcissists over the course of my career.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: So how does that stack up against the narcissistic abuse conversation and what do we do with that information?
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Right, Because everything exists on a spectrum.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: There can be, you know, mild narcissistic traits and then there can be full-blown narcissistic personality disorder, but it is something very, very real that needs to be recovered from, and it is a tricky thing to do.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: So how can we understand this better?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Well, the most important thing I want you to know about recovering from narcissistic abuse is to not focus on it, to not focus on narcissism as being something the source of the issue.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Now, because when we come out of narcissistic relationships, we feel lost, confused, not sure what's real at all, convinced that we were the problem.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: It can be really, really hard to know what to focus on.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Right when you're recovering from narcissism, and so when you find content that seems to so explain your reality, right, when you're recovering from narcissism, and so when you find content that seems to so explain your reality, right, seems to validate and help you feel seen and heard and less crazy.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Right, that's something I have heard people say like gosh, I just I'm not crazy.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I feel so much less crazy.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: There's something very freeing about hearing that content that feels like the perfect lock and the key that helps you kind of unlock understanding of how you got here.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: But the reality, love, is that what we focus on grows, that when we focus on narcissistic abuse as a topic within our healing, that we're creating more potential for abuse.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: You are actually activating more potential to be abused in your life when you focus on it, because what we focus on grows.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: When we study the law of attraction, we understand that where we put our focus is what we call to us.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: The more you expose yourself to that word and those concepts and feel like a victim of it, the more you will kind of remain trapped, cycling between anxious and angry.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: So that initial boost you get from understanding how narcissism works and the effects it has, great.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: But then move on, because the reality is in a vibrational world where, like calls to like, narcissists vibrate very low on the emotional guidance scale.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Right, they feel a lot of self-loathing, a lot of fear and anxiety deep down inside.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Right, I know this from treating them that there is deep insecurity, deep darkness, darkness that vibrates at a very low vibration.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: But guess what?
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Codependency vibrates at a very equally low vibration, because codependency is about helplessness, hopelessness, despair, having not a sense of confidence or worthiness and so like, calls to like.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: So typically, the extent to which someone is narcissistic the partner that they're going to end up in a relationship with is the extent to which that person is going to be codependent, meaning feeling incapable of relying on themselves.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And that's how it ends up happening.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Right, and I know you've heard this in all the other content that you've consumed but typically people who end up in these types of relationships have experienced a lot of childhood distress, massive attachment wounds, dysregulation, and both the narcissist and the codependent because those two types are drawn to each other like a moth to a flame are equally low vibe states.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: They're just with a different expression, equally low vibe states, they're just with a different expression.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: And so, love, your job is to really recognize that what you focus on grows and that you are better off focusing on owning your own subconscious pieces that are causing you to attract narcissistic abuse, and that you are better off focusing on getting grounded in what's real.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: And what do I mean by that?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, when I was first divorced, I had lost kind of my sense of discernment, my capacity to trust myself, and a lot of that wasn't so much because of my marriage.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: It was a good chunk of it was because of that, but I was predisposed to that when I got married because I grew up with two parents who were very controlling and have a lot of narcissistic traits, and so I really had lost my capacity to know the difference between when I was experiencing anxiety or intuition.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I had lost the capacity to know when what I was praying for was being answered or not, and so my strategy in those moments was to go to places that seemed different to create powerful results, right.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So, for instance, I went back to church.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Actually, there is a spiritual text there in church that has withstood the test of time, right, for thousands of years.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: The Bible and other religious texts, right, have withstood kind of the test of time.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: So I went back to the words in red right, jesus's words.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I went to Al-Anon, where there were the 12 steps and the 12 principles and lots of literature that seemed to create really powerful results for people, and I went to yoga.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: These were three places that I started right, and I learned the principles behind each of these programs and I could see that they were in agreement that Jesus's words and yogic principles and the principles of Al-Anon and of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: There was agreement there, and so when I felt like I did not know which way was up and I did not know what to think, feel or believe, I would go back to those.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Oh also, louise Hay.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I started studying Louise Hay and she was like ahead of her time right, you can heal your life based on positive thinking, positive beliefs and affirmations.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And so I used these tools.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I would walk around with a daily reader from Al-Anon in my purse and when I would feel anxious or resentful, or lost or confused or mixed up or kind of the things that happen with narcissism, right, a loss of worth or a lack of courage, I would go to these texts and I would say what have other people learned?
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Right, that have been capital T truths that can guide me.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And so where we end up, our lives end up being kind of an accumulation of what we think, what we feel, what we believe and what we choose.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: And so when I realized I couldn't trust my thoughts and feelings very often, when I realized I couldn't really trust my thoughts or feelings very often, I would go back to all these places and I would say what do these texts say about what I'm thinking and feeling about myself, about other people and about the world around me.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: And I made that a habit, because when you don't know what's real and you start living a life from that place of confusion, the life that you create is going to become pretty chaotic if it isn't already.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Confusion the life that you create is going to become pretty chaotic if it isn't already.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And so I started really building my life on the foundation of concepts like Jesus's teachings, and that was what I would make my decisions by, and when I joined a therapy group or did some healing principle or practice, I made sure that it was not based on irrational or negative thoughts, feelings or beliefs that I had about myself or somebody else.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And that's the most important thing that you can really be focusing on is building a life of positivity, of hope, of healing, of getting to the root negative beliefs that you hold about yourself and your safety in the world and transforming those into positive beliefs.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Now you can't just pretend that the one doesn't exist and just try to, you know, wipe that out and put the other one over it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: There is a process of transforming right.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Energy cannot be created or destroyed.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: It can only be transformed.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So you have to transform those negative beliefs into positive beliefs, and you've heard me talk about lots of ways to do that, but when you focus on narcissistic abuse content, it's going to keep you stuck, and so the more valuable thing you can do is to focus on the positive beliefs you want to embody in your life and the places in which those positive beliefs are taught and are being reinforced, so that you can stand firm on what you know is real, because so much of what you're thinking and feeling is not real, and it's based on years of being gaslighted, right, gaslit which one you tell me?
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I'd love for you to send me a DM which one is it Gaslighted or gaslit?
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So I want you to own your issues that caused you to attract narcissistic abuse in the first place.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Typically, it's very low self-worth and a lot of internal confusion and lack of belief in self right.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I want you to really own that.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: What we focus on grows.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: So when you focus on positivity, when you focus on wellness, when you focus on your wholeness and hope, that's what's going to grow.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: When you focus on the other, it's not, and I want you to really look at what's real in life, not just the thoughts and feelings and old negative beliefs that you've been living from thoughts and feelings and old negative beliefs that you've been living from.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: The reality is is, if your ex is truly has narcissistic traits or has narcissistic personality disorder, you're in a great place right now to recover from that.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: That.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: There is a very real opportunity for you to have a more secure, stable life than you have probably ever, ever, ever had, and that's what I want you to step into love.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: That's the power and the purpose that I want you to step into Owning your life, owning your truth, standing on what's true and, for once and for all, finding a place of security and well-being.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: If you haven't already, I'd love for you to come find me on Instagram.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: My handle is at Dawn W't already?
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I'd love for you to come find me on Instagram.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: My handle is at Dawn Wiggins, I'd love for you to follow.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Send me a DM, just say I heard you on this episode.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I love, love, love connecting with you on Instagram.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: It's my favorite place to hang out on socials.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: My Instagram algorithm is full of healing, delicious goodness.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I am constantly learning something new and wonderful.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I would love to share with you some of my favorite Instagram handles right that I follow and learn from and just really a way for me to be inspired and in touch with you there.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So come find me on Instagram at Dawn Wiggins.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Peace, peace, dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach, john.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: You can find more at mycoachjohncom.